The Red Knight

Jack of Jacks shuddered. To most men, the killing of a faery was sacrilege. He spat. ‘Thorn, we are here for one reason only. You promised us you’d defeat the aristocrats. For that, we have gathered every bow from every farm. Our people suffer under our lords’ hammers this summer so that we can defeat them. And yet, the king’s army comes closer and closer.’ Jack scowled. ‘When will we fight?’

‘You are a deadly secret, Jack of Jacks.’ Thorn nodded. ‘Your long shafts will be the death of many a belted knight, and your men – you said yourself they must stay hidden. They will emerge from decades in the shadows at the right moment, when we play for everything. I will face the king and his army on ground of my choosing. You will be there.’

He turned to the qwethnethogs. ‘I am guilty of sending each of you to fight your own foes in your own way. This still seems wise to me. Between gwyllch and Outwaller there is no friendship. The Jacks have no love for any creature of the Wild. Every beast in the woods fears the qwethnethog and the abnethog.’ He ate a dollop of honeycomb. ‘We should have triumphed by now, and I feel the strong hand of fate on the rim of our shield. I command that you all take more care.’ He’d lowered his voice and imbued it with power from the air around him and the store he held for emergencies, and even so the daemons challenged him.

‘Obey me, now. We will not fight the king at Albinkirk. We let our early victory spread us too far, dissipate our strength. Let Thurkan watch the king and eat his horses. No more. Let Exrech withdraw from Albinkirk. Offer no battle. Let the Sossag and the Abenacki fall back to their camps here. Let the Jacks sharpen their bodkins. Our day approaches, and the king will never reach Lissen Carak.’

Thurkan nodded. ‘This is more to my liking,’ he hissed. ‘One mighty fight, and a rending of flesh.’

Thorn forced a piece of a smile – it seemed to crack the flesh around his mouth – and all but the daemons quailed. ‘We will scarcely need to fight,’ he said. ‘But when they have fought among themselves, you may rend their flesh to your heart’s content.

Thurkan nodded. ‘Such is always your way, Thorn. But when it comes to teeth and spears I do not like having the Cohocton at my back.’

Thorn hated being questioned, and his anger rose. ‘You fear defeat before a single spear is cast?’

The great daemon stood his ground. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have seen many defeats, and many empty victories; my hide bears the scars, and my nest is empty where it should be full. Both of my cousins have died in the last moon – one on the spear of the dark sun, and one with his soul ripped from him by their cruel sorceries.’ He looked around. ‘Who will come to my aid? You expect treason – and I agree that humans are born to betray each other. But many will fight, and fight bitterly. This is their way! So I say – who will come to my aid?’

‘Have you finished whining?’ Thorn bellowed.

Jack squared his shoulders. ‘If it is your unshared plan that the mighty daemons face the king then my comrades and I will be honoured to share the danger with our scaled allies.’

Thorn wanted to scream in frustration. My plan is my plan is my plan. I will not share it with the likes of you. But he narrowed his eyes, banished the bile from his great heart, and nodded.

‘Then gather more boats, and prepare to cross the river. This time, protect them. For unless the king is a great fool, he will advance on the south side of the river, as my brother Thurkan fears. Yes? And if you are hard pressed, I will send gwyllch, at least the lighter kind, who can pass the river.’

Exrech spat a clear fluid. Waste of resources; conflict of interest.

Thorn took a deep breath, and pushed power into his word.

‘Obey,’ he said.

By the time the fireflies came out, the clearing in the woods was empty.

Lorica – Desiderata

Desiderata sat on her throne in the Great Hall of the castle of Lorica, still dressed for travelling. She had a dozen minor issues on which to pronounce justice, and all she wanted was dinner and bed. Taking a train from Harndon to Lorica in a day was harder work than she’d expected.

She worked her way through the cases – the murder of a draper by a woman, the theft of a herd that trailed off into accusations and counter-accusations by the monks of two rival abbeys – and then there was a messenger.

He wore the royal scarlet and midnight blue livery, and even covered in road dust it commanded instant attention.

He was young and not particularly handsome, and yet had an air about him. He knelt at her feet and presented a bag.

‘The king sends to you, my lady,’ he said formally.

She didn’t know him, but word of war had made the king increase every part of the household – an action that would affect the royal budget for ten years to come.

‘Royer Le Hardi, my lady,’ the messenger said.

‘The news?’ she asked.

‘All is well with the army,’ Royer replied.

The Queen took the pouch and opened it, cutting her husband’s seal carefully and opening the lead wafers that secured the buckles with the small knife she always wore in her girdle.

There were four scroll tubes holding about a dozen folded and sealed letters – she saw letters to the Emperor of Morea and the King of Galle – and a thick packet with her name on it in his handwriting, which she snatched up.

She read a few lines and frowned. ‘My lords, ladies, and good men and women,’ she said formally, rising to her feet. ‘I will hold court in the morning, and all cases are held over until then. The seneschal and sheriff shall attend me, as will my own lords.’ She smiled, and many in the multitude at her feet smiled back, so personable was her smile.

The hall’s chamberlain smacked the floor with his staff. ‘The Queen has dismissed the assembly,’ he said, in case there were those who didn’t understand.

Before the last draper had cleared the portico the Royal Steward and the King’s Treasurer – were at her side. ‘News?’ asked Bishop Godwin. Lord Lessing – a banker promoted to the aristocracy by the old king – rubbed his beard.

She tapped the cover note against her teeth. ‘We will continue north to join the army,’ she said. ‘If we have a tournament at all, at this rate it will be in the face of the enemy, at Albinkirk or even Lissen Carak.’ Her thoughts were clearly elsewhere.

Her king’s note sounded desperate, and he had ordered her not to come.

‘Strip this town of carts,’ she said. ‘I will leave everything that I don’t need – I’ll take four maids. No state gowns, no frippery, no clothes. You, my lords, should stay here. You will form the government.’ She paused. ‘No. Go back down the river to Harndon.’

The bishop breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I might be gone a month,’ she said. ‘Or more. I may stay with the king until the emergency is past. Lord Lessing, I would take it as a kindness if you would organise the supply convoys as I have been doing.’

Lessing pulled at his beard. He had gold wire in it, which somehow served only to make it look greyer. ‘I will do your will, Lady,’ he said gravely. ‘But some of those wagons need to start coming back. We have stripped the southern kingdom bare and I doubt that there is even a wheeled cart to be had in Harndon. If they are lost, the harvest will rot in the fields.’

‘Best they not be lost, then,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll see to it that the wagons I’ve sent north are turned around – either empty, or full of the northern harvest.’

‘Boats,’ Lessing said suddenly. ‘If he’s aiming for Lissen Carak, you should go by boat. The docks here are full of empty hulls – Master Random of Harndon’s boats. He’s arrayed a mighty fleet of river boats to buy the grain harvest in the north. It’s supposed to be a secret, I admit. But I had it from his wife, and you can go faster by oars and sail up the river. And it’s safe as houses – never yet heard of a boglin as could swim. Eh?’

She loved her lords because they weren’t going to try to stop her, and because both of them began immediately to plan for the practical details of her trip to join the army.

After they’d made a dozen lists and summoned half the prominent men of Lorica to witness deeds and to become commissioners of this and that, she collapsed at last into the best bed in the royal keep of Lorica.